On a positive note, last night United announced on Flyertalk that they have revised their expiration policy for GPU and RPUs. Now, instead of expiring a year from their issue date, they will expire at the end of the January of the status year. So, if you earned your 2012 certificates, they won't expire until 1/31/2014.

This is great news and matches the old Continental policy, which was better than the United one. The original United granted you certificates on January 1st and gave you 13 months to use them. The current policy grants them the day you hit 100,000 miles, so if you earn them in June, you get them for an extra six months.

United said any certificates issued in 2012 will automatically have their date adjusted and sure enough, when I logged in this morning, all of mine have been extened to 1/31/2014.